The letters, phone calls and e-mails that follow an investigative series can be depressing.

People, being people, are initially defensive and lash out at those who air their dirty
laundry.

Usually, they question our motives and why we had to include personal information. Those who are
most offended by something we publish usually end up at the same place: "You're just trying to sell
papers!"

We do investigative projects such as the "ABCs of Betrayal" with the hope that someone in power
considers our findings worthy of action.

The series revealed that since 2000, about two-thirds of the more than 1,700 educators
disciplined were returned to the classroom or issued licenses. Reports of educator misconduct were
not reported to the state, and nearly three dozen educators and coaches who were charged with
crimes were never investigated by the Education Department.

Although the findings were outrageous, we knew it was possible that no policy change would
result from our work. It's a risk newspapers take when exposing a problem this large and this
sensitive, especially given that it involved people who are generally revered in our communities
for their work with children.

But your governor and legislative leaders wasted no time calling for reform.

Before we could finish publishing the four-day series, House Speaker Jon Husted called for an
investigation. The next day, Gov. Ted Strickland, whose political base includes teachers unions,
demanded reform, as did Senate President Bill M. Harris.

After reading the first day of the series, Husted said, he was on the phone with key members of
his staff and caucus. "We agreed we needed to do something about this," he said. "All of us in my
office are parents of children that go to school. Everybody from me to my chief of staff to others
instinctively understand how unsettling that can be on a personal level … and we knew we needed to
take action."

Surprisingly, Susan T. Zelman, Ohio's superintendent of education, told lawmakers that the
system was troubled and in need of reform. Her comments were surprising because it was a
significant departure from what she had said just weeks earlier. Aided by her staff, she had
largely defended the system.

Time will tell whether the promised reforms will materialize. And history shows that reforms can
be derailed at the Statehouse by powerful interest groups. But judging from the bipartisan
consensus that the system needs reform, I'm optimistic that substantive change will result.

Husted said he's committed to a solution, looking for one that solves the problem without
"beating up on the good teachers that are out there."

Fixing the problem is why we do what we do.

And that makes the nasty calls and e-mails tolerable --- especially given that compliments far
outweighed criticism after this series.

But some of the criticism leaves us scratching our heads.

A grandmother of students at Worthington Christian High School chastised us for a story in the
series that exposed a teacher there for having sexually assaulted a student --- and then was
allowed to return to the school.

We had ruined Dwayne Smith's life, she charged, before pointing out that he had four small
children. Asked whether she thought he should still be teaching students, she suggested that we
should have cut a deal with him: Resign, and we won't publish his name.

She was more outraged that we had told the world about his past than she was about the fact that
he assaulted a young student.

That is twisted and illogical. It is the kind of disregard for victims and defense of
perpetrators that allowed the state disciplinary system to fall into such a mess. The suggestion
that we should consider such a "deal," which would amount to blackmail, is an insult on its face.
But anyone who would contemplate it is considering an unconscionable option that would allow a
teacher to move to another school and potentially assault more children.

Like Zelman did for the state system, those in charge of Worthington Christian initially
defended their system. They also defended their decision to bring Smith back to their school. But
after a different teacher was charged last week with similar behavior by a former student in
Wisconsin, the school decided to change its hiring practices and not hire sex offenders.